One Small Step
by Spawn Guy
Summary: Because some things are just hard to accept at first.


You are George Stacy. You are a detective for the New York City police department. You have a daughter who you love very much. And you do not need this pain in the butt.

Walter Hardy. The king of the cat burglars. Here. In your city. Potentially armed.

The call came in two hours ago, and because you and Arthur failed to deal with the Hardy case (one of several) seven years ago, you had to go racing off and leave your daughter leftovers. Again.

The victim, small time fight promoter Sullivan Edwards, didn't make much sense, which further irritates you. Among his ramblings about how "somebody" didn't "do something" you managed to confirm that Hardy is indeed armed.

A cat burglar with a gun. Definitely armed. It's been eleven years since Silvio Manfredi went down, and every rookie and even some of the guys older than you thought this was a chance to relax. And then the Big Man grew up out of nowhere. He runs things a lot more smoothly and a lot more quietly than the Manfredi's ever did but that doesn't make things better. That just means cops who remember what it was like working back in the 80's put more pressure on themselves to catch guys like Hardy. And that was difficult back when you were younger, now it's potentially impossible. And he's getting older too, old enough to get desperate. Old enough to carry a gun.

That's not the worst part. Not by far.

The worst part is why you're stuck in traffic right now.

The worst parts is that maybe not even a half hour ago, a couple of streets away from Edwards' venue, Walter Hardy murdered Ben Parker.

The sheer unfairness of it burns in your hands and crackles away deep in your gut. You should be used to the fact things line up like this, that sometimes it's not possible to keep your work and your life entirely separate. You've built a lot of walls that allow you to cope with that fact, and they're still there. But the Parkers deserved more than that.

Peter deserved to have a few more years being a son. May deserved to leave her life with the man she loved by her side. You know how much that's going to hurt. Sometimes you don't even remember what Helen's favourite song was. Hell, maybe you deserved to know Ben a little better than you did.

You used to joke about how you were the only people in New York who still drove an Oldsmobile. Every time you didn't have anything to say to each other you always had the good old "They don't make 'em like this anymore." routine. But the Parkers were good people. Peter and Harry were good friends to Gwen, even if you've always been a little unsure about Eddie Brock.

Perhaps one of the reasons you're so agitated right now is because deep underneath you're worried about how close your work has come to your life because this is going to have terrible ramifications for one of your daughter's friends. You're worried about how this is going to effect her though them.

And you've met Peter. The boy's a good kid. He didn't deserve to loose his parents and he didn't deserve to loose his only father the way you and Arthur lost yours, and he sure as _hell_ deserves more from you than to be kept at an emotional arms length because you're terrified of what's going to happen when you have to explain to Gwen how to react around him the next time she sees him.

Throw all this in with the fact that maybe if you'd been just a little quicker, just a little smarter all those years ago, all of this could have been avoided, and you're seriously tempted to hit your siren and just slice right through all this stupid traffic.

Then the call comes in. They spotted Ben's Oldsmobile on West 16th Street.

Car chases don't work like you think they do in the movies. Your hands hurt around the wheel, bursts of fear and insanity explode all around you, and then there's what you'll do if (_when_) you catch the guy. You're deep into the Meat Packing district, contemplating how it feels like coming home, when…something happens with Ben's car, sending it careering out of your vision.

You almost send Carter and DeWolfe's car off the road before you manage to find the Oldsmobile again, dashed against the side of a warehouse. You're already opening the door as the brakes kick in. Just a few more seconds. A few more seconds to catch your breath, find Hardy, he can't have gotten far because you know you couldn't have gotten far, not like this, and this is all over. Maybe Ben will leave a gap that shouldn't be there, but it'll be over. You can go back to your life.

A window shatters

And then you see…

You don't know what you see.

And then Hardy is dangling in front of you, suspended from some kind of translucent line.

You are George Stacy.

You are a detective for the New York City police department.

You have a wonderful daughter that you love very, very much, more than you ever realised.

You're looking at the nation's most wanted cat burglar, hanging upside down in a cocoon that looks like it comes from another planet, left there by something that looks and moves like a red and blue childhood nightmare, and you've never been more scared in your life.

You're scared because the walls separating your work from you're life have been cracked tonight, and if you acknowledge what you just saw, in all it's terrible alien beauty, they'll shatter. And it won't be Hardy or this insect _thing _that will strike the final blow.

It'll be you.

If you acknowledge this for what it is, you will allow your work, something beyond your work, to cascade into your life. You will be responsible for the world Gwen will live in and it will have spiders and webs and God only knows what else is in it.

Then you remember the mark on the world men like Hardy leave at the expense of men like Ben, and order Carter and DeWolfe to start cutting him down. Maybe this will bring…whatever that was into your world. But it's a world you're going to keep living in. A world Gwen can keep living in. A world where men like you can still stand tall and say they did the right thing.

"Walter Hardy, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…"

You just pray to God you know what you're doing.


End file.
